Notes on the ideology of international organizations law: The International Organization for Migration, state-making, and the market for migration

Abstract

This article discusses the law and practice of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a little-known but important international organization. The article aims to illuminate what it is the IOM does; how it influences its member state practices while simultaneously working on member state assignments; and how this affects the dominant theory underpinning the law of international organizations, i.e., the theory of functionalism. The article concludes that the IOM takes functionalist thought to extremes, and in doing so makes visible the latter's ideological nature.